BIBERACH PROGRAM NOTES
(translation by Chris Earnest, March 2018)

"It's almost unbelievable", said the mayor of a major German city recently, after a concert by the symphony orchestra of the US 7th Army. "Of course we knew that the Americans could build cars, but that they also understood so much about performing good music, we did not know."

This is how almost all visitors reacted to the many concerts that the orchestra has performed since its founding in 1952. In its first year the orchestra played only in the American Occupation Zone in Germany. But as early as 1954 it gave 140 concerts throughout West Germany and in Austria. In every city the audience was astonished at the high standard shown by the music-making soldiers. However, the orchestra realized its biggest successes in the first five months of 1955 in its now famous tour of France, Italy, and Great Britain. In major cities like Strasbourg, Lyon, Rome, Milan, Naples, London, Edinburgh, and Belfast the packed concert halls applauded heartily and the critics gave high praise.

The repertoire of the orchestra includes not only classical works by Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, but also modern pieces, for example by Hindemith and Barber. The orchestra was founded under the protectorate of the US State Department, the American armed forces, and the German-American Youth Federation.

From the outset, its purpose was not only to provide good music for American Army members and their families, but at the same time to improve understanding between people through the common language of music. Naturally an orchestra like this has its special problems, due primarily to the continual turnover of members, who return to the United States once their military obligation is over. So it is even more admirable that the orchestra gets good reviews even from sharp critics, and gets more invitations than it can accept.

Like the conductor, all other orchestra members are also young people for whom music is a mission in life. Before their service time they were either studying or working as professional musicians, so it is fair to say that they all bring a certain degree of experience. In fact all 70 musicians do not regard their service in the orchestra as an easy way to escape hard duty as soldiers, but feel they are ambassadors to Euruope of American intellectual life.